


Timeless Love

by Hawkerin



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Mention of Previous Miscarriage, Post-Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, don't read until you've watched season 12, written to reflect The Timeless Children
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:53:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24895714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkerin/pseuds/Hawkerin
Summary: Together for their forever, the Doctor and Rose move on with their life on Earth.  It all seems to be going as expected until they meet a new species of aliens to seem to think that they know the Doctor, though he has no memory of ever coming across their language or technology before.  But there's something about them...
Relationships: Metacrisis Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler
Comments: 47
Kudos: 61





	1. While You Were Gone

They stood together on the cold beach, hand in hand for quite a while. Jackie had managed to call a car to come get them and was waiting inside for them.

“Didn’t think he’d actually go through with it,” Rose finally said, her voice cracking a bit.

“Oh, Rose,” he sighed, turning to pull her into his arms and pressed her face against his chest. “You know he didn’t want to. That nearly broke him.”

“We should get home, yeah?” she said with a sniff as she pulled away from him.

“Yeah,” he nodded and took her hand again as she led the way up the beach.

Torchwood paid for them to stay the night at an inn in Norway while Pete brought the zeppelin to pick them up. There was no question that Rose and the Doctor would be in a room separate from Jackie. It was no secret to Jackie what their sleeping arrangements had been before they were separated. And a few pointed looks and whispered conversations had the Doctor quite sure that there was something that Rose needed to tell him.

They laid on the bed, facing each other and he played with her hair as she counted freckles. Only one of the bedside lamps was on and they hadn’t bothered with pulling back the covers or undressing beyond throwing their jackets over a chair.

“What is it?” he asked softly.

Rose bit her lip and closed her eyes for a moment. He could see a hint of tears starting in the corners of her eyelids.

“I sort of lied. When you were burning up a sun to say goodbye,” she admitted. It was a few minutes later that she finally whispered, “I was pregnant.”

“What?” he gasped.

“He… I lost him shortly after your goodbye.”

The Doctor pulled her into his arms and they both cried. He clung to her desperately, as if by holding her tight enough, he could somehow make up for his absence when she needed him most. Rose shook with the force of her crying and he stroked her hair soothingly while his own tears streaked down his face and made a wet spot on the pillow. It seemed like hours that they sobbed in each other’s arms for their lost child. 

“It shouldn’t even have been possible for me to get you pregnant. There was a curse on my people. Pythia’s curse meant that we couldn’t procreate naturally. We had to use a sort of technology to weave together the genetic material from parents to make future generations,” he explained.

“So your other children?”

“Were all loomed, yeah. Not sure how I could have gotten you pregnant at all. Might be able to now that I’m part human, but before?” The Doctor’s face creased as he thought about all of the variables and possibilities.

“Is that something you would want though?” Rose asked, breaking him from that train of thought to look at her incredulously.

“Rose, of course I would. How could you think I wouldn’t want that with you? I want everything with you. The slow path that I thought I could never have,” he assured her and held her close again.

“Do you think it was because I’m human that he died?” Rose asked.

“What?! No, Rose. I don’t know how it even happened in the first place, but don’t ever think that it was your fault. If I had been with you, maybe I could have helped. A mixed species pregnancy could have all kinds of complications. No matter how advanced the technology is on this Earth, they’d never know how to deal with that. On the TARDIS, I could have scanned his genetics, intervened where needed,” he insisted.

“I couldn’t tell you. You said I couldn’t come back. I thought it would be easier for you if you didn’t know. I didn’t want -,” she tried to explain.

“I know. I might have torn the universes apart to get to you, if I’d known. I just kept telling myself that you were safer with your family. That you might miss me, but you could be happy here,” he said.

“Could never be happy without you, Doctor,” she told him, looking up into his eyes.

He kissed her lips, wet and a bit swollen from biting on them through her crying. Despite so long apart, though, all of their actions were soft, soothing, and chaste for the solemnity of their grief. After another hour or so of quiet tears, they fell asleep in their clothes, on top of the covers, but held each other through the night.

They were quiet on the zeppelin the next morning. Rose picked at her breakfast while they ate in silence, but they never let go of the other’s hand.

“Is there… is there a grave or anything?” he asked when they were nearly back in London.

“I - you always bragged about your superior genetics and such. How a drop of your blood could change history. I didn’t want anyone to,” she told him, but couldn’t even finish voicing the thought of anyone experimenting on their son.

“It’s fine, Rose. You’re right. Burned?” he asked, not able to fully form the question.

Rose nodded, her head leaning hard against his shoulder. When she got herself back under control, she told him about the little shrine she had set up in her flat. 

“That’s perfect, love. I can’t wait to see it.”

He moved into her apartment right away. They were married soon after, not wanting to waste anymore time and not particularly wanting to deal with Jackie pestering them about it either. And while both of them worked together at Torchwood, they still felt restless stuck on one planet, in one time.

#####

“What kind of readings?” Rose asked as she drove the large, black 4x4 over the rough terrain.

“It’s some sort of energy reading, but I don’t recognize the frequency pattern,” the Doctor replied. 

The scanner he had created monitored just about anything unusual on Earth. He filtered out all the usual noise on the planet. But odd radiation, energy readings, time distortions, would all show up as a signal on his machine and they could go and check it out without much question from Torchwood. The organization learned early on that trying to keep Rose and the Doctor on any kind of leash was a hopeless endeavour.

“So, not the Sontarans again, then?”

“Definitely not. This is much more advanced. Could be a race that’s unique to this universe. Might explain why I’ve never seen it before. That doesn’t happen very often,” he rambled, making minor adjustments as they got closer to the source. “That way, love.”

There appeared to be some kind of shuttle-sized craft on the ground ahead of them. There was a pearlescent quality to the silvery metal, the rectangular craft had no visible windows or doors, and could be mistaken for a solid block if they weren’t sure it was a spaceship of some kind.

“Any sign of the pilot?” Rose wondered as she turned off the engine of the 4x4 and moved toward the ship cautiously.

“Not getting any readings, but the hull is probably shielded,” he told her and left the scanner on the seat before joining his wife.

“Hello? Is anyone here? Are you alright?” Rose called out as they approached.

One of the walls of the ship suddenly disappeared, revealing a woman in casual, neutral coloured clothing. There was nothing distinctly alien about her that they could see, she could easily have passed for human had she not been stepping out of a spaceship. Her blonde hair was tied behind her, a brown tunic cinched at the waist covered the top of green trousers. She smiled brightly at the Doctor and dashed out of the ship to greet him.

The woman began rambling in an unknown language excitedly, seemingly conversing with the Doctor as if he should understand her and maybe even know her.

The Doctor looked at her in confusion, glancing at Rose for a moment to see if she seemed to understand what was being said. Perhaps his brain had garbled something, but no, his wife seemed just as confused by the woman’s behaviour. At the same time, the language sounded oddly familiar. He didn’t recognize it, couldn’t translate it, but a vague sense of the meaning behind the words trickled through his mind. Calling him a long anticipated traveller? Seeker of something? How did he even get that much from it?

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying,” he said to the woman.

She seemed shocked by his response. Reaching into her pocket, she produced a small device and activated it.

“Traveller? How is it that you do not understand?” she asked, now translated.

“I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with your language. May I ask what species you are?” the Doctor replied.

“Not familiar? I am your species. You last knew me as Lanhrien, but it has been so long since you began your search. I’ve recently gone by Dhithrae as I search for those who gradually return to us. Pardon me, but what name do you use at this time?” she told him.

“You’re a Time Lord? How? I didn’t think there were any Time Lords in this universe,” the Doctor replied.

“What is a Time Lord? What has happened in your travels?” Dhithrae questioned and placed a hand on the top of his head.

The Doctor fell to his knees, his eyes shut as if in horrible pain. Dhithrae seemed quite relaxed, looked in fact like she was sleeping despite her standing position. Rose tried to move to pull the woman away from him as whatever she was doing looked like it was hurting her husband. She grabbed the woman’s arm and tried to pull it away, but she couldn’t budge her at all. Next she tried to push the Doctor away from her, but nothing she tried would move either of them.

After what felt like forever, but was actually only two minutes, Dhithrae pulled her hand away from his head and looked down at him in horror. The Doctor fell back onto the ground with Rose pulling him close to her in support immediately. He was gasping for air and Rose could feel his heart racing.

“What did they do to you, Doctor?”


	2. You Forgot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, for readers a little further in the future, this story was written right after season 12, so any other canon information about the Doctor's original species hasn't been told yet. It's rated M because I plan to include sexy times, but it'll be a bit later on in the story because there's so much to establish first.

Rose convinced them both that what they needed was a cuppa and a long discussion about just what was going on. The Doctor sat in the front seat, while their guest sat in the back as Rose drove to the nearest cafe. The ship had landed in a field quite far from London, but there was a village nearby.

Dhithrae seemed happy to try the tea they’d ordered, anxious to experience what this planet had to offer. Up to this point, Dhithrae hadn’t directly addressed Rose at all, but was looking at her closely now.

“You found her,” she said with a smile.

“What? What do you mean? What does Rose have to do with any of this?” the Doctor demanded, suddenly protective of his wife.

“Perhaps it would be best if we discussed what has happened to you first, Doctor,” she suggested.

“He never told you his name,” Rose interjected.

“She saw it in my mind. Just how much did you see?” he asked.

“All that you remember. But there is much missing that should be there,” she told them. “You were born in this universe. Something truly horrible has to have happened to you for you to have forgotten your origins. There should not be another species that renews itself as we do, in any universe.”

“Regeneration was a result of developing so close to the Untempered Schism on Gallifrey,” he explained.

“No, Doctor. It is natural for our species and there is no limit to how many times it can occur,” Dhithrae responded. “I think it would be best if you came back to Xicruna with me and we can try to find out what has happened to your memories.”

“What?!” Rose shouted. “No, he’s not just going off with some strange woman that claims to know him to some unknown planet!” 

“Oh, he could never leave you behind. That would be unthinkable now that he’s found you,” she replied. “I’ll take you both back and our scientists can discover how to restore your memories. It’s absolutely essential that you know who you are and why you were travelling the multiverse.”

“Yeah, curiosity was always a weakness of mine, but for the moment, I don’t have transportation of my own through space, so I’m going to have to agree with Rose on this one. I’m not going anywhere off of Earth for the time being,” he insisted.

“I will contact Xicruna. This situation is completely unheard of. They may send help here given the circumstances,” she said. “Would you take me back to my ship, please, Rose.”

“Xicruna? Is that what you said? I’m not familiar with that planet.”

“In your memories, it was designated X-delta-738,” she clarified.

“But it’s completely uninhabitable,” the Doctor argued.

“In every other universe, yes. Only here is it our haven,” Dhithrae explained.

“I think we’ll be staying on Earth for now, thanks,” Rose told her. “Let’s get you back to your ship, so you can talk to your people.”

Rose parked the car near Dhithrae’s ship while she contacted her homeworld. They waited in the car, taking the time to discuss what was happening.

“Do you believe her?” Rose asked.

“I don’t know. She seems sincere in her belief that she knows me and that I should know her. But now that she’s seen all my memories, it would be easy for her to come up with a story I might believe,” he said.

“Did we just invite an invasion?” she wondered.

“I don’t think so. It might just be a misunderstanding. Could be a group of pirates. But I don’t think this will be like the Sycorax or Sontarans.”

“Could she be telling the truth?” Rose suggested.

“Could I have forgotten centuries worth of life before I think I was even born? There were hints through my life on Gallifrey. Bits and pieces of memories that didn’t seem to be my own, that sort of thing. But coming from another planet, in another universe and not from Gallifrey at all?” He considered it for a few minutes. “I just don’t know. It would change everything that I thought I knew. My whole life would be one big lie.”

“Would it though? I mean, yes, where you came from and your parents and such would be different. Someone lied to you about where you came from. But that’s not who you are, Doctor. Centuries of living your life as you’ve known it to be has shaped who you are. That part of you that is always the same, through your regenerations, is still you. No matter where it started,” Rose told him, threading their fingers together.

“Thank you.”

“What do you think she was talking about when she said you found me?” she questioned.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know what they could want with you, but I will keep you safe. No matter if they’re telling the truth, or it’s a mistake, or it’s all some elaborate deception, I will keep you safe,” he promised. 

Both of their phones pinged at the same time with a message from Torchwood, looking for an update. Rose sent a quick reply that they had made contact with a new alien species who seemed to be friendly. It would be enough for the moment to keep the rest of Torchwood from storming the area for the time being.

When Dhithrae returned to them, she said that there were friends on the way, as their ship was already in the area.

“You just happened to have a ship full of scientists nearby here?” Rose questioned suspiciously.

“Not exactly. There is a ship a few systems away from here that belongs to a couple who may be able to help. Faestuth and Oshtuy have done some work with telepathic therapies. Nothing to do with memories that I’m aware of, but they are more proficient with the telepathic arts than I am,” she explained.

“I’m going to insist that you and your friends ask permission from now on. Any more stunts like you did earlier will be considered hostile,” the Doctor told her.

“I am sorry, Doctor. The societal norms that you have forgotten regard that type of telepathic sharing in a different way than your current memories indicate. I will inform the others that for the moment, we should treat you as we do other races we encounter, rather than as one of our own,” Dhithrae assured him.

“Right,” Rose responded. “And if you or your friends do any of that business without permission again, I’m gonna do more than just try to pull you off of him.”

“Noted, Rose,” she said with a nod.

It was only a half an hour or so later that a ship similar to Dhithrae’s landed nearby. It was slightly larger, but otherwise looked like the same type of pearlescent, rectangular block of alien metal. A pair of aliens, dressed similarly to Dhithrae exited the ship and greeted her by clasping both hands and giving a slight bow. One of them appeared to have a slightly purplish tint to their skin, which Rose found odd since she presumed they would both be of this same mysterious race they claimed the Doctor belonged to. She also had trouble discerning a gender for either of them. While Dhithrae seemed quite clearly female, it was harder to tell with these newcomers.

“May I introduce Faestuth and Oshtuy. This is the Doctor and Rose Tyler,” Dhithrae announced. “Forgive me for a moment my rudeness, it will be faster to explain the situation with them telepathically.”

The Doctor and Rose watched as the trio all placed their hands on each other's foreheads and closed their eyes. They seemed to be in a sort of telepathic conference.

“Why do you think Oshtuy looks like they’re a different species?” Rose whispered, not wanting to be rude, but curious about the Doctor’s thoughts on the matter.

“Not sure, but I think they’re Aaphrae. Completely different part of space from where Dhithrae said her homeworld was,” the Doctor whispered back to her before the trio broke their communications and turned back to face them.

“Quite right, Doctor,” Oshtuy said to them, making both blush red at having been caught. “There’s no need to be embarrassed. And I can understand, given your current circumstance, why you are confused by the fact that I was born a different species from my partner. All Oltieh marry other species.”

“Is it so surprising given your own differences?” Faestuth asked.

“No, I just was expecting more, what was it? Oltieh?” Rose explained.

“Yes, once we can find a way to restore your mate’s memories, it will be much more clear how our society functions,” Dhithrae said with a smile.

“May I suggest, visiting the medical bay of our ship?” Faestuth said.

“Long as that ship is staying on Earth,” Rose replied, taking the Doctor’s hand.

“Of course, Rose” Dhithrae assured them.

All three of the visiting aliens looked at Rose fondly for a moment, making her shift uncomfortably under the scrutiny. “What?” she asked.

“Forgive me. I shared some of the Doctor’s memories of you with them in our explanation. You are so protective and devoted to your soulmate. The Doctor was a truly fortunate seeker in finding you after all this time,” Dhithrae explained.

“Yes, I was. Now, shall we focus on what it is you think I’m forgetting?” the Doctor said, stepping slightly in front of his wife, but not releasing her hand.

Faestuth and Oshtuy linked arms and led the way back into their ship. It looked to be the size of a large lorry. Upon entering, it was clear that their species also had transdimensional engineering technology. They followed the couple down a long hallway to a set of glass doors and walked into a well equipped medbay.

Rose refused to leave her husband’s side as they conducted their scans using unfamiliar equipment and tried various telepathic techniques. They spent hours, tirelessly trying to find a solution. Rose didn’t even realise that she had fallen asleep until she was awoken by Oshtuy. At some point, she’d been moved to lie on one of the medical beds and covered in a light blanket. Oshtuy was offering her a tray of food now, so she sat up and searched the room for the Doctor before accepting it.

The Doctor had several wires from one of the scanners stuck to his forehead. He nodded to indicate that he was alright despite her not being awake to keep an eye on their hosts. He seemed to trust what they were doing for now and Rose relaxed a little, tasting a bit of everything on the plate before choosing which she liked.

When she finished eating, Rose returned to the Doctor’s side and asked, “Any progress?”

“A bit actually. They’ve managed to help me remember a bit of some experiments using a chameleon arch. You remember me telling you about that?”

“The thing with Martha that turned you human and put your mind inside a watch, yeah?” 

“Exactly. I remember a bit of them using one of those to test the details of regeneration without my knowing who or what I was. So there is definitely something more there than I thought. I’m getting flashes now of faces that I don’t remember having, but I’m sure that they were me,” he told her.

“So you really think this’ll work? Are they worried about you being part human now?” Rose wondered.

“He isn’t,” Dhithrae interjected.

“What?” Rose asked.

“I’m not part human. She saw my memories and what I thought had happened, so they checked it. I never had the right equipment here to do a proper test on my genetics. Human technology can’t detect the third strand of my TNA.”

“But you’ve only got one heart now,” Rose argued.

“True, but I only had one heart in the first life that I remembered too. And obviously that wasn’t my first incarnation either,” he said.

“It’s why I was so horrified at the thought of what they must have done to him. Whatever the people of Gallifrey did to you, it was far more than just erasing the memories of your past,” Dhithrae explained.

“So, is your DNA the same as the other Doctor then?” Rose asked, still not quite following.

“TNA. And well, yes and no. There is a slight fluctuation between us, but not much more than between one regeneration and another. That third strand is the key. The thing that we couldn’t detect here on Earth. That’s the part that always stays completely the same from one life to the next. The rest varies slightly to control hair and eyes and so forth. That was mostly the same as the other Doctor, with just a couple of influences from Donna in the metacrisis process. The core part of THIS me is exactly the same as every other Doctor in the other universe,” he rambled excitedly.

“It really is fascinating, scientifically, but it’s also so very sad for the other,” Dhithrae said.

“Why do you say that?” Rose asked.

“Because not only will he not remember his search, but he cannot complete it. Or, even worse, if he does someday remember, you’ll still be lost to him forever,” she replied.

“His search for what exactly?” Rose wondered.

“For you, of course,” Oshtuy sighed nearby.

“Me?”

The Doctor took her hand, pulling her attention back to him, rather than the others in the room. “While you were sleeping, they explained a bit more about why I wasn’t in this universe when I ended up on Gallifrey at all. I was sent to travel the multiverse for thousands of years to find you, Rose.”


	3. Seeking the Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so glad you are all liking this so much. I appreciate all of the wonderful comments, even if I don't always know what to say in response and just repeating "thanks" on all of them feels silly. I will warn you in advance that there might be a bit of a break in posting when we reach the end of what I've already written. The notice that I could start working again as a hairstylist after almost four months off for quarantine came literally overnight, so now I'm super busy and writing will be reserved for the few days off that I book for myself. I'll keep posting what I've got everyday for now though because I love the responses from all of you. <3 Stay safe.

Rose was worried now. He had been sent to find her by some alien race in another universe? Why her? How did they know about her? Had these people somehow brainwashed him while she was asleep to let them experiment on her or something? She started to pull away from the Doctor at his declaration and she could see the hurt in his eyes. He didn’t understand why she would be worried about what he had said, but she needed a bit more explanation before she accepted what they were all saying.

“Why me? What do some aliens want with me?” she demanded.

“No! No, Rose, you misunderstood. Not them, just me. When they’re old enough, they all go out to search in every universe for their one true soulmate. And you’re mine. I found you,” the Doctor explained.

“But,” Rose stuttered, sure that there had to be some kind of mistake. She wasn’t that important. Lucky to be with the Doctor, sure. She was so grateful that he chose to love her and stay with her after everything that had happened. “But how do you know? I mean, of course we love each other, but the other Doctor could still find someone else and be happy, yeah?”

“When one of us finds our true soulmate, we are pulled back to this universe. Pulled back home to complete the bond. That is why you and the Doctor ended up here to fight Lumic, why you ended up trapped here away from him, and since he was no longer with you, he couldn’t be pulled back through on his own,” Dhithrae told her.

“He could still be happy,” Rose insisted, tears pooling in her eyes.

“Oh, Rose,” the Doctor said, pulling her into his arms. “He can. Of course he can be happy, unless he remembers what happened before and suddenly realizes what he lost. He’s always found ways to have fun and be happy with all of his companions, finding trouble to fix throughout time and space. But he won’t have you.”

Dhithrae and Oshtuy were both crying as they watched the Doctor try to comfort Rose as she realized what the other man, who was also still her soulmate, had really given up in leaving them here. 

Faestuth approached the couple with a few of the Doctor’s brain scans in hand. He cleared his throat to gently get their attention. 

“I think I know what needs to be done,” he told them. “But I’ll warn you, Doctor, based on the damage that was done, the memories are likely quite traumatic.”

“I gathered that. I need to know. Please,” he responded.

“Do you need me to move out of the way?” Rose asked quietly, clearly preferring to stay close to the Doctor.

“No,” Faestuth answered quickly. “He’s going to need you close. Especially when it’s over.”

He showed everyone the scans, pointing out the areas where there were clear signs of trauma. It was clear that the damage was more than just physical, since his cells were completely repaired with each regeneration, but in the memory patterns that were retained.

“Like corrupted computer coding?” Rose asked, trying to follow.

“Exactly!” the Doctor shouted. “Brilliant, Rose! Yes, it’s like they’ve deleted the line of code that allows my brain to access those memories. They couldn’t actually delete all the memories, and because my physical brain regenerates the nerves connecting all the sections, they had to find another way of blocking it.”

“You all know what we need to do?” Faestuth asked.

The three of them each placed one hand somewhere on his head, while Rose kept a firm grip on his hand.

“Are you ready, Doctor?” Dhithrae asked.

“Ready,” he said quietly, bracing himself.

The Doctor closed his eyes and waited. He could feel the others on the edge of his consciousness, trying not to intrude on the actual thoughts and memories while repairing the missing connections. In a sudden flash, thousands of years were returned to him. He had already searched one universe quite thoroughly before ending up in Rose’s original universe. He had just been reborn as a child when Tecteun found her, a little girl on the edge of the portal she had created through to that universe. At first she was happy to travel with this woman who called herself an adoptive mother. The Doctor was already several centuries old then, but appeared to be a child, so she followed along. 

Once they were back on Gallifrey, however, things took an unpleasant turn. The testing that Tecteun did to examine the Doctor was invasive, and after the accident that revealed her ability to regenerate, things got steadily worse. Extracting enough TNA to force death after death, all to feed their desire to make themselves near immortal as well. 

Rassilon, together with Omega and Tecteun created the Hand of Omega to harness a collapsing supernova into the Eye of Harmony. After this caused the death of Omega, Rassilon then wanted to name himself the ruler of all of Gallifrey. Tecteun objected, of course, to being cast aside and was subsequently erased from history, renamed the Other in all texts.

The Doctor, seeing the chaos that was ensuing from all of this, stole one of the newly created time capsules and ran. They had hunted him/her for several lifetimes before finally capturing him and causing so much telepathic trauma that he nearly didn’t regenerate at all. When he awoke afterward, he was once again a child, with no memory of anything that had happened before and all traces of his origins were erased. He was assigned to the House of Lungbarrow, with the designation Theta Sigma, and as he grew up, all actual memory of his previous existence was erased from their society. 

It was a miracle that after all of those centuries, without even knowing that he was looking for her, he would happen to come across Rose. He understood now, just how vital that search was in the life of every Oltieh. 

When the Doctor finally opened his eyes, he was lying on one of the medical beds. Rose was still holding his hand, but seemed to be asleep again, sitting in the chair right next to his bed. Curious as to how long he had been unconscious, he checked his time sense. Twelve hours? He supposed it should make sense that suddenly processing several thousand years of memory that had been lost to him would take some time. Not wanting Rose to suffer from sleeping in such an awkward position, he moved to pull her up onto the bed with him. She stirred briefly, but he settled her in his arms and shushed her back to sleep.

The Doctor needed some time to think about how all of this would change things for him. Rose was right in that it wouldn’t change the man he was now. The person he was even before the life he had known, wasn’t so different really. Even without his previous memories, his curiosity, rebelliousness, and morality had always shone through. It changed how he thought of Gallifrey. There was less fondness for the planet now, but mostly directed toward Tecteun and Rassilon. It explained why he had never fit in with their society completely.

But now what? He and Rose had a life here on Earth with her family. Would Rose want to go to Xicruna? He didn’t have a ship, so they would be reliant on the others to take them until he could make his own transport. The Oltieh didn’t have time travel technology. Their sensitivity to time was only meant to keep them from affecting the universes they visited during their search. He remembered now, how the original TARDISes were created and could grow a new one here. He had come to enjoy having that option in his travels and knew Rose loved it too.

He realized suddenly that the space in his mind where he used to feel the other Time Lords, was now filled with the presence of the other Oltieh in this universe. Faestuth, and Oshtuy were nearby. Oshtuy’s link with their spouse making the connection possible. Would Rose consent to that? Probably if she knew it was important to him.

Reaching out a little further, however, he noticed something wrong. Where were all the humans that should be on the planet? He couldn’t sense them in the same way, but he should at least feel them nearby. Unless.

The Doctor jumped from the bed, jostling Rose and she woke just as she saw him running from the medbay.


	4. What's Next?

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” the Doctor shouted when he entered the control room of the ship.

Faestuth and Oshtuy were sitting at the controls and there was no sign of Dhithrae in the room. From what he could see, it was likely that she was back on her own ship.

“Do you not wish to return home? We felt that once you remembered, your insistence to remain there would stop,” Faestuth replied.

“We told you that permission was required. For telepathy and for travel,” he insisted as Rose entered the room and took his hand.

“What’s going on?” she asked quietly.

“While we were sleeping, they decided that we should go to Xicruna.”

“Oi! We only agreed to even come onto your ship under the condition that it stayed on Earth!” Rose shouted angrily.

“But you remember now!” Oshtuy argued. “After all this time, do you not yearn to create your bond with her so that she can endure with you?”

“Of course I do, but I haven’t had a chance to discuss it with her. And she has family on that planet! She needs the opportunity to tell them what is happening,” the Doctor insisted.

“We will be on Xicruna within the hour. Discussions to travel back to Earth can be discussed later,” Faestuth told them abruptly.

The Doctor glared at Faestuth angrily, but was ignored. Oshtuy looked between them warily.

“Let’s go talk, Rose,” the Doctor finally said, leading her back through the ship to the kitchen.

Rose flopped into one of the chairs as the Doctor moved through the kitchen to find something for them to snack on. He seemed familiar enough with the appliances and storage to find what he was looking for. Rose gathered that it was a standard kitchen by Oltieh standards, so now that he had those ancient memories, he knew what to expect.

“First, I want to apologize,” he sighed.

“None of this was your fault, Doctor,” Rose replied.

“No, I know that. But, on behalf of the species that I now seem to belong to, I want to apologize for their lack of understanding. While I like to think that my personal moral compass leads me to be a good person, it would seem that my occasional lack of empathy comes from somewhere,” he continued.

“Seems like we don’t have much choice right now. So, do you want to explain just what it is they were talking about? Something about a bond and enduring?” Rose asked.

The Doctor wiped a hand down his face, clearly frustrated with the way things were being handled. Seeming to come to a decision, he placed the tray of food on the table and sat across from her. He took both her hands, concerned more with this discussion than eating for the moment.

“If I had remembered any of this before now, we would have had this discussion a long time ago. It’s something beautiful, loving, and intimate. You’ve been thrown into this and that tarnishes it,” he began, spinning her wedding band on her ring finger.

“Doctor, you know I love you. We’ve been thrown into horrible situations the whole time we’ve been together. Being thrown into something good is a nice change. Now, what’s this all about?” Rose asked again.

“As I told you earlier, the Oltieh are sent out to find their one true soulmate in the multiverse. Once they find them, the couple are pulled back into this universe to return home and form a bond. It’s a telepathic connection that allows their soulmate to interact not only with their spouse, but also with the other Oltieh to some degree. I can feel Oshtuy in my mind, just as clearly as Faestuth,” he explained.

“That does sound lovely, Doctor. But there’s more, I can tell. What’s that enduring bit?” she pressed.

He swallowed before continuing, staring at her wedding ring rather than looking up at her face. “It will allow you to regenerate as well.”

“So, instead of you growing old the same time as me, like we thought when he left us here, we would have forever?” Rose questioned.

“Yeah,” the Doctor whispered. “The Time Lords always limited it to twelve regenerations. Thirteen lives, then you would die. But it was an ability that they stole from me. They would have to sort of top up that energy to extend it any longer. I don’t have that limitation and neither would you. We would literally live forever unless the damage was too much.”

“So, this is marriage for the Oltieh?” she said.

“The only marriage and the guiding force of their… of our lives.”

“We’re already married, Doctor. I wouldn’t say no now. Let’s get this done, and we can go back home to explain to my mum,” Rose told him plainly.

He smiled at her then, squeezing her hand. He pulled the plate of food between them, now that the tension of the moment was over.

“We’ll have to figure out how to get back now. I still don’t have my own ship,” he pouted between bites of some kind of fruit.

“Do you think they’d give you one of theirs to borrow or something?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’s been a few thousand years since I was there last,” he said.

“And you remember all that time now? Thousands of years? When before you thought you were only nine hundred?”

“Well, I said nine hundred,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “That may have been a bit, well…”

“How old did you actually think you were, Doctor? In the life you used to remember?” she asked.

“I may have hit nine hundred in my sixth life, but it’s hard to keep track you understand, with all the time travelling. So probably more like twelve hundred?” he guessed.

Rose laughed. It didn’t really matter anyway. All of it was far longer than she could currently comprehend, but would apparently experience for herself now. Thinking about differences in age really only mattered when it came to life expectancy and health matters really. As long as both people were mentally mature enough to make those decisions, there was no problem.

The couple ate a bit more while they waited for this part of their journey to be over. When they reached Xicruna, there would be a whole new set of things to deal with. 

“Our phones don’t have universal roaming now, is there any way we could call home to tell them we’re alright?” Rose wondered.

“Hmm. I don’t have the parts right now. Didn’t think we’d need them while we were Earthbound. And I couldn’t have gotten them there anyway. I’d at least have to go offworld, if not into the future. There won’t be anything that they can do other than worry about us though. Not like they could try to follow us or anything,” he said.

“Too bad we can’t time travel anymore. Could just go back right after we left and they’d never even know how long we were gone,” Rose lamented.

“I know how they were made now. Not just in theory, Rose. I remember how the first TARDISes were created on Gallifrey. I could probably grow one for us here,” he suggested.

“Hold on though, how long would that take? I can’t imagine a TARDIS would grow in a month or two,” she said.

“Well, no. No, we would have to spend a month or two getting it set up and started, then it would take a thousand years or so before we could fly her,” he admitted.

“A thousand years?! Doctor! I’m not staying away from my mum for a thousand years,” Rose argued.

“Of course not. No, it would be breaking the rules a bit, but well… the rules were made by the Time Lords in another universe, so sod the rules. We could, from the future, come back to collect us from Xicruna and bring us to where we need to be to start it up and then ahead to when she’s ready to fly. It means crossing our own timeline, and you know how dangerous that can be, but for the sake of having our own TARDIS again, it would be worth it. Don’t you think?” he rambled.

“So, let me get this straight. You want to plan to, in our future, come back to today and pick ourselves up in our TARDIS, to take us to where we start growing our TARDIS, then forward to pick up our fully grown TARDIS, before going back to Earth a few minutes after we left?” Rose reasoned.

“Yeah. Bit of a time loop, but as long as we keep it simple, there isn’t too much that could go wrong to rip a hole in reality,” he said matter of factly.

Rose looked a bit uneasy with the reminder of the last time they’d crossed their own timeline and released Reapers on Earth in her childhood, but had to trust him on this or they might be stranded for who knew how long.

When they finally stepped out of Faestuth and Oshtuy’s ship onto Xicruna, Rose gasped at the sight. She always loved her first glimpse of a new planet and this one was certainly a vision. The Doctor’s fingers threaded with hers, squeezing lightly in acknowledgment of just what she was feeling. The sky wasn’t quite blue, more of a lavender colour, the clouds tinged orange and pink in the fading light of evening. The expanse of buildings in front of them were gleaming white, like some kind of expensive marble reaching up to the sky in tall spires. The stones of the street were various shades of grey and turning to look around, Rose could see that the leaves on the trees were more of a bluish green than those on Earth. 

“It’s beautiful,” Rose whispered.

“It is. Very beautiful,” he agreed. “I think we need to go in there.”

The Doctor led her into the tall building before them, leaving the pair that had brought them to the planet behind. He had a plan now, and he wasn’t going to count on the others they had met to get them back where they belonged.

“Has it changed a lot from what you remember? It’s been a long time, yeah?” Rose asked.

They spoke quietly in the hallway, the overall hush of the building preventing them from wanting their voices to echo too much.

“The overall design of this structure is the same. It’s a ceremonial cathedral for everyone to come back to after centuries or more away from here. They need to keep it recognizable. I’m sure the architecture on the rest of the planet will be drastically different,” he told her.

“What do we need to do here again?” Rose questioned.

“Dhithrae should already be here. She is the one that seeks out all of the travellers as they return and she is the one to perform the ceremony part of the bonding. There are crystals lining the chamber that help increase telepathic abilities. I’ll connect my mind with yours and with the help of those crystals and such, your mind will form a permanent link with mine and through that, a mild link with all the rest of the Oltieh. You’ll feel a rush of energy from all of us that will enable you to regenerate and slow your aging,” he explained.

“And where are we going now?” she asked when she saw that rather than going on through to the large chamber ahead of them, he was diverting them both into one of the small side rooms.

“Wardrobe. Unless of course you’d like to get married in your Torchwood uniform?”

“Right,” she responded, blushing.

They both pulled on the white, flowing robes that were kept there for just such an occasion and went out to find Dhithrae. She had changed as well, into a long dress of deep blue. The crystals the Doctor spoke of were everywhere in the room, like stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Those too were a deep shade of blue, standing out against the gleaming white stonework of the cathedral.

Dhithrae spoke more of the language that Rose didn’t understand and the Doctor nodded before leading her up the stairs to kneel on the cushions in the center of the room. It was then that Rose noticed a dozen or so other people around them in the room. She looked at him worriedly, but he smiled and nodded reassuringly.

Once they were kneeling together, more of the unknown language was spoken. The Doctor took her hands, placing her fingertips against his temples before reaching to touch hers as well. When he closed his eyes, she followed, suddenly thrown into an odd, cloudy space.

‘I’m here, love,’ Rose heard the Doctor say, but it echoed strangely. ‘We’re in a sort of telepathic space.”

‘What do I need to do?” she asked.

‘I’m doing it, don’t worry,’ he replied.

Rose just felt sort of fuzzy and lost for a while before the energy he told her about suddenly rushed through her mind and body. It was like standing in the middle of a storm as everything rushed around her. She almost felt like she was drowning somehow, then suddenly, she was in his arms. She gasped for air as she looked around the room again. Rose could suddenly feel the minds of everyone in the room, but most strongly that of the Doctor, holding her gently and looking into her eyes as he waited for her to get her bearings.

“Hello,” she said breathlessly.

“Hello,” he replied with a beaming smile.

“We welcome you, Rose Tyler. You are now Oltieh,” Dhithrae announced.

Rose was confused for a moment when she realized that Dhithrae was speaking the same language that she had been earlier, but she suddenly understood it. The Doctor mentally reassured her that was part of the bond, without having to say a word. She marvelled at this new connection with him and felt his happiness echo her own.

“Right, well, thank you,” the Doctor said as they stood and started slowly making their way out of the ceremonial chamber. “We’re just going to go for a bit of a walk. You know, show the wife around and all that.”

“Of course, Doctor. There will be a banquet in two hours time,” Dhithrae responded.

The Doctor rushed them outside and Rose got the feeling that they probably wouldn’t be attending the party in their honour. They were sitting on a bench in a nearby park before they discussed what would come next.

“What’s the plan, Doctor?” Rose asked.

“I’m afraid the only plan I have right now is to wait for our future selves to show up and get us out of here,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Then what? We spend a few months on some planet getting a TARDIS ready to grow?” she asked, a bit disappointed by that prospect.

It was then that they both smiled at a very familiar sound. Right behind the bench where they were sitting, a large, blue police box appeared. When the door creaked open, a young man with ginger hair appeared, calling back into the ship without spotting them just yet.

“What are we doing on Xicruna? I thought you wanted to go dancing?” he complained. Suddenly looking at the couple on the bench, he gasped. “Oh. It’s now.”


	5. Unexpected Visit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooh! An adventure! I hope you like this little rewrite addition to the story. It felt a bit silly to show another Doctor and Rose just to have them play taxi and leave. For the moment, once this adventure is done, there'll probably be a bit of a break as that's all I've got written so far. But I'm setting this up as an ongoing story, so there will be more.

“Oh. It’s now,” the young man in the TARDIS doorway said as he stared at them.

“Doctor?” Rose asked.

“Not exactly,” he replied.

“Rose!” the Doctor beside her gasped.

The man looked over to him fondly and smiled. “I did so love that hair,” he said.

“What’s going on, love?” asked a woman’s voice with a strong Northern accent. She appeared beside the young man, revealing a short, blonde bob brushing against the collar of her light grey trench coat.

Rose squeaked as the younger Doctor rubbed the back of his neck and said, “Well, that’s a bit of a surprise.”

“Ah! Brilliant!” the future Doctor exclaimed.

“Not exactly going to close this time loop right away then, I take it,” the younger Rose commented.

“No. It’s been, umm, a while,” the future Doctor told them. “Got a bit distracted.”

“Right. Well, let’s get on with it before they start trying to rope us into that banquet, yeah?” the younger Doctor suggested.

“Definitely,” the future Doctor replied, making a disgusted face. “They’re not really going to like all this, by the way. The time travelling thing, I mean.”

“Their food is alright, but their parties are boring,” the future Rose told her past self.

The younger Rose looked at the couple a bit awkwardly. She hadn’t expected to see a different version of themselves, let alone finding out that both of them had switched genders somewhere along the way.

“I know it seems odd, Rose. You’ll get used to it,” her future self assured her.

“Used to what?” the future Doctor asked distractedly as she set the new coordinates on the TARDIS console.

The new TARDIS looked less like a machine and more like a grown crystal chamber. There was still a lighted time rotor in the center of the console, but not much in the way of metal.

“To the fact that we might change genders with regeneration, of course!” the younger Doctor told himself. He grabbed his wife’s hand as he moved around the console room to explore a little bit.

“Oh. Did that bother you, love? I don’t remember that bothering you,” the blonde Doctor asked.

Her ginger husband rolled his eyes and said, “I had already been around all the rest of the Oltieh for a few centuries by then. It wasn’t really a surprise.”

“Centuries?!” Rose gasped. “And hang on, I know about it now, so of course it wouldn’t be.”

“Your memories from today will be a bit fuzzy. It’s just a side effect of crossing your own timeline. It’s alright, nothing really important to remember anyway,” the future Doctor explained.

“But don’t we need to remember where it is that we set up the TARDIS to grow and stuff?” Rose asked.

“Nah, we took care of that a long time ago. I mean, you’ll have to take care of it during your travels before we get to it now, but there’s no rush. You’ll kind of end up on a planet that’s perfect for it, and the TARDIS will remind you herself. Pick up the parts and such on the way. It all works out. We’re just here to take you to when she’s ready to go!” she told them.

“That’s brilliant. Thank you, Doctor,” the younger Doctor said with a bright smile.

The time rotor started moving as they left Xicruna behind and headed towards their new TARDIS. They couldn’t wait to get back into their travels of time and space after a couple years of having been stuck on Earth. The ship landed with a familiar thump and the younger couple headed for the doors. Stepping outside, they looked around for their new ship.

“Hang on. Doctor, what are we doing in London?” Rose asked as she turned back to look at the future Doctor.

“That’s not right. We should be on Karn,” she replied.

“Karn? Why would we grow a TARDIS on Karn?” the younger Doctor asked.

“Closest we could get. No one lives there in this universe,” she told him.

Rose’s mobile rang and she stepped aside to take the call. “Hi, mum. What’s up?”

“Are you and the Doctor back yet? I think you’d best come to the mansion as soon as you can,” Jackie told her.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, her Doctor looking over as he felt her sudden worry.

“Yeah, you could say that,” Jackie replied.

Just then, the Doctor’s mobile rang. “Jake, what’s going on?” he questioned, fairly sure that there was a reason the TARDIS had redirected them here at this precise moment.

“Are you and Rose back in London yet? I could call in a Torchwood team, but I have a feeling you might be better to figure out where a giant spider came from,” Jake replied.

“Giant spider? Where?” the Doctor asked.

The older Doctor and Rose looked at each other worriedly. “Should we come back for them later or something?” the older Rose asked.

“What? No! You can’t just leave us here. You’re supposed to bring us to our TARDIS. Help us sort this quick and then you can drop us off where we were supposed to go,” the younger Rose argued.

“Right,” the younger Doctor agreed, taking charge of the situation. “Rose, you and the other me, go see what’s going on with your mum. The other you and I will go and see what’s going on with Jake.”

“Why are we splitting up like that?” Rose wondered.

“Because we need to act fast, not run all over the place. Jake doesn’t know these two and your mum doesn’t either,” he explained.

“Right. And best not tell any of them who we are either,” the older Doctor said. “I’ll be Jane and he’s Ross.”

“Why not tell them? Wouldn’t it be easier?” the younger Rose asked.

“Because we never told mum about me regenerating,” Ross admitted sadly.

All of them frowned at that. Of course she knew that she would outlive her mother by centuries, but the thought of actually being at that point was difficult. The two versions of Rose looked at each other for a moment, then nodded.

“Right. Let’s go then, Jane. See what’s got mum so worked up,” Rose announced, waving at a passing taxi for hire.

The younger Doctor took Ross’ hand and headed towards the Tube station. Ross glanced back towards his Doctor and they nodded at each other before heading off.

At the Tyler mansion, Rose found her mother standing at the door to the basement with a broom. The door was braced with a kitchen chair.

“Ok, mum. Wanna tell me what you’ve got trapped in there?” Rose asked.

“Where’s the Doctor? I told you there’s a problem here and you came without him? Who’s this?” Jackie demanded.

“Calm down. Jake called the Doctor. Something about a giant spider,” Rose replied.

“You mean there’s more than one of them?!” Jackie shrieked.

“There’s a giant spider in the basement here?” the future Doctor asked.

“Who’s she?” Jackie repeated.

“Jane. Jane Smith. New recruit for Torchwood,” the Doctor rambled immediately. “Rose here is showing me the ropes. She’s brilliant, she is.”

“Right,” Jackie replied suspiciously. “So, what are you going to do about the giant spider here without the Doctor?”

“You act like I can’t take care of this sort of thing myself, mum. I am a Torchwood agent, thanks,” Rose argued, moving the chair so they could get into the basement.

“Let me, love,” the Doctor insisted, heading through the door first.

“Oi! If she’s training you, shouldn’t you follow her?” Jackie shouted after them.

Rose shut the door behind her, so the spider wouldn’t escape and raced down the stairs after her… future wife? There was an odd thought.

“Doctor!” she whispered harshly. “You can’t go acting like, well, like you in front of me mum. She’s going to figure it out and you said she wasn’t supposed to know.”

“Sorry, Rose. I can’t help it,” she replied while scanning the basement with her sonic screwdriver. 

There were an excessive amount of spider webs around the room considering the whole house was regularly cleaned by the staff. The Doctor smacked her sonic against her hand.

“What’s wrong?” Rose asked.

“It’s not here. I’m not detecting anything alive down here except a couple of normal sized centipedes,” she said.

“Did it escape the same way it got in then?” Rose wondered.

“Possibly. Good idea, love! Some sort of tunnel or something,” the Doctor said as she scanned again. “There it is!”

She dashed over to a large hole dug through the foundation. It was about half a metre in diameter and headed almost straight down under the house.

“Can you tell where it leads?” Rose asked.

“Towards the city, but that’s as far as I can scan from here. It’s a bit too tight for us to follow it. Best go and see what the others have found out,” she suggested.

“Right. We’ll borrow one of Pete’s cars and meet them,” Rose said.

###

“Hey there, Jakey boy!” the Doctor called as they approached the apartment where Jake was waiting outside.

“Doctor,” he acknowledged. “Who’s this? This’ll probably be classified.”

“Friend of mine. Ross. Nothing to worry about. Now, where’s this spider?” the Doctor said quickly.

“If you’re sure, Doctor,” he sighed. “I noticed Jade here, knocking on the door to my neighbour’s flat. Anna’s not shown up at work or called in sick for a few days now and she was worried. So I got us inside and well, you’ll probably want to see for yourself, but be careful, Doctor. The spider in there killed Anna.”

“Killed her? How?” he demanded.

“She’s lying in her bed, all wrapped up in spider webs. Whole flat is full of them too,” Jake said.

“Right. Ross, stay behind me,” the Doctor said as he opened the door and carefully made his way inside.

“Why don’t I remember doing this, Doctor? I mean, I know our memories are fuzzy after meeting ourselves, but this is more than just a bit fuzzy,” Rose whispered as they made their way through the apartment.

“It’s, well, complicated. What you do today hasn’t actually happened yet, even if it technically has for you, but if you knew what you were going to do and didn’t follow it exactly, it would cause a paradox, so you can’t know, which gives you the freedom to still make your own choices. It’s all a big ball of,” the Doctor rambled.

“Wibbly wobbly, yeah, yeah,” Rose sighed.

There was a slight hissing noise just before they saw a spider the size of a large dog come around the corner. The pair froze in the hallway, waiting to see what it would do, but when it started heading towards them, they backed away, out of the apartment.

“Ok, Jake. Here’s the plan,” the Doctor began, but paused when his mobile rang. “Rose, what have you got?”

“Mum said there was a giant spider in her basement. We checked but it looks like it left through a big hole in the floor. The tunnel looks like it heads back into the city. We took dad’s 4x4 so we can meet you,” Rose explained.

“Head to Jake’s place, we’re right outside,” he said as he rang off. “Now, Jade, what’s your story?”

“I worked with Anna. I was just worried about her,” she told them.

“And I’m very sorry that she died, but you don’t seem particularly panicked right now and most people would be if they’d just seen a spider that size. What do you know?” he asked.

“This isn't the first incident. Something's happening with the spiders in the city. They're out of control,” Jade admitted. “I'm a research fellow in zoology, specialising in arachnids and arthropods. But spiders are our main focus, and we're seeing something very wrong in their behaviour right now.”

“Ok, Jake, get a Torchwood team to contain this one. Jade is going to show Rose and I her research,” the Doctor instructed, leading the way down towards where Rose was pulling up with her dad’s car. The future Rose followed awkwardly, making sure Jade was following them.


	6. Arachnids in London

Rose drove them all over to Jade’s research lab, her Doctor in front with her and the couple from their future sitting in the back with Jade. Glancing in the mirror, Rose could see that they seemed to be having a silent, possibly telepathic, conversation. Her future self looked upset and she wasn’t sure if it was something her current Doctor had done or if it was something to do with being in this time that was bothering him.

“We reckon there could be around 21 quadrillion spiders on the planet in total,” Jade told them as they entered the laboratory.

“So what sort of research are you doing in here?” the future Doctor asked, examining the various cases holding specimens.

“We're interested in utilising the genetic strengths of arachnids. Ordinary spider silk is as strong as steel or as tough as Kevlar,” Jade replied.

“And you want to experiment with that?” the future Rose asked incredulously. They’d seen too many occasions where something that was supposed to be helpful ended up in disaster, like nanogenes during WWII.

“Ooo, fun fact,” the older Doctor exclaimed. “If you weave dragline spider silk as thick as a pencil, it's strong enough to stop a plane in flight.”

“Really?” the younger Rose asked.

“Mhmm, I've had to deal with it,” the younger Doctor chimed in. “Well, me and Amelia Earhart. You'd like her, lovely woman. So, what else are you doing in here?”

Jade looked between them all as if questioning their sanity for a moment before she continued, “I've been working on an enzyme to increase the lifespan. Spiders can keep growing for as long as they live.”

“And we’ve now got giant spiders,” the future Rose said.

“Yeah,” Jade sighed, drawing similar conclusions.

“Did Anna have access to your experiments?” the future Doctor asked.

“No, she was on the admin team. Everything we do here is secure. We discard all carcasses responsibly through a specialist company. Unless she was taking things without us knowing, but... she's not that kind of person. I should notify the police.”

“No need. Torchwood’s involved now,” the younger Rose assured her.

“What about the stuff you said with this not being the first incident with odd behaviour?” the younger Doctor asked.

“Reports of unusual spider activity in London over the last three months, from the police, pest controllers, and to us here,” Jade told them, leading them over to a bulletin board. 

There was a map of the London area with pins marking the reports. Details of each on small papers all around the edges.

“Rare sightings, an increase in numbers, spiders you don't normally see at this time of year,” Jade listed as the Doctors looked over the various reports and where they were happening.

“Something's wrong with the spider ecosystem in London,” the future Doctor said.

“Exactly. But we don't know what. They have nothing in common. Different species, different quantities. Some are large massings, some have been a profusion of web-building. I can't work out if they're confused, or angry or scared,” Jade told them, clearly frustrated.

“Or trying to send a message,” the younger Doctor interjected as he and the future Doctor started connecting the dots with a marker.

“Why wasn’t Torchwood told about this?” Rose asked. “We exist to investigate unusual things like this.”

“I don’t know, it wasn’t really up to me. What are you doing?” Jade asked.

They had a mass of lines connecting the points based on the times when things happened and came up with a network surrounding a large blank space in the middle of it all.

“Where's that?” the Doctors asked in unison.

Their search led them to a brand new hotel that hadn’t even opened yet. They found the doors locked, but noticed that there was someone in the lobby, just inside the doors. Rose knocked on the glass to get her attention and four of the five people in their little group gasped at the face that greeted them.

“Yeah?” the tall ginger woman asked holding open the door a bit.

“We’re from Torchwood,” Rose told this parallel Donna. “We need to come in and inspect the building.”

“I’d say I was the person to ask, but apparently I’ve just been sacked as the general manager,” she replied. “What the hell, come on in. What’s he gonna do? Fire me again?”

“How comes he fired you before the hotel even opened?” Rose wondered.

“Ugh, you wouldn’t believe what-” she began, but they suddenly heard gunshots.

The two Doctors, Roses, Jade, and Donna all ran towards the sound of screaming. Running down the hallway, they came across a panicked looking man in a very expensive suit. The younger Doctor took charge immediately, pulling out his Torchwood identification.

“Torchwood investigators. You just ran very quickly out of a room, looking quite scared. Tell us exactly what's going on, omitting no detail, no matter how strange,” he instructed.

“A giant spider just smashed through my bathtub and took out my bodyguard, Kevin,” the man replied.

“Right. Very succinct summary,” the older Doctor said. “Well done. You just wait here while the Doctor and I have a look. A spider smashed through a bath. Right.”

Both Rose’s, Donna and Jade waited in the hallway with the hotel’s owner.

“Hang on, aren’t you Jack Robertson?” the younger Rose asked. “Since when do you own hotels?”

“I am. Who are you supposed to be,” he replied.

“Are you stupid, mate? That’s Rose Tyler! The Vitex heiress,” Donna told him.

“You were fired. You’re trespassing on private property,” he snarled. “And you, your father sent you here to spy on me, didn’t he?”

“You’re the owner of Pep Energy Drinks. What’re you doing running a hotel?” Rose asked again.

“Diversifying.”

Inside the hotel room, the two Doctors carefully made their way to the bathroom.

“What’s wrong with your Rose?” the younger Doctor asked. “He’s upset about something.”

“He never got to say goodbye to Jackie when she died. We were away, then he regenerated and couldn’t go back before to say goodbye.”

The future Doctor kneeled on the edge of the broken tub and leaned over into the hole. She looked around for a moment, then said, “Hi, looking for a Kevin?”

In a flash, she jumped up and grabbed her past self, pulling him from the room and back into the hallway. They tried to get everyone out of the hotel, but found the entrance suddenly completely covered in thick webs. Looking for somewhere bright and busy to hide, the group ended up in the kitchen.

‘Ah, good. This'll do. Okay, thinking. Need to be quick, spiders are moving fast. Why is this hotel the epicentre of spider activity?” the older Doctor rambled.

“Wait! Nobody talk until you tell me what you're all doing here. Spiders. Plural?” Robertson demanded angrily.

“Very plural. Sorry, I don't know who you are,” she replied.

Rose and the younger Doctor snickered at her feigned ignorance. Of course they knew who he was. His energy drink company was the main competitor for Vitex, but taking him down a peg was certainly fun.

“Oh, really? Cos you must be the only person on the planet that doesn't,” he told her.

“Are you Ed Sheeran? Is he Ed Sheeran? Everyone talks about Ed Sheeran round about now, don't they?” the Doctor asked.

“I am not Ed Sheeran. I am Jack Robertson and this is my hotel. Just one hotel in what will soon be an incredibly successful chain of hotels, which is just one small part of my business portfolio, as featured in Fortune Global 500. Does that ring a bell?” he argued.

“Should I look impressed right now? Is that impressive?” she wondered.

“He owns Pep Energy Drinks,” the older Rose told his wife.

“Oh! Ugh,” she responded, making a face.

“I knew that Torchwood crap was all a cover story. But, look, we're talking about spiders!”

“Oi! You listen here mate. John and Rose Tyler are the top agents for Torchwood. It was all over the news,” Donna argued, though they knew it was really all over the gossip magazines.

“I hate spiders. Phobia hate. I will not have them in my hotel,” Robertson insisted.

“Fine. We were supposed to be in a hurry on this. Doctor, what’s the plan?” the younger Rose interjected, asking her husband.

“Right, we need two things. Plans of the hotel and a captive spider,” he answered.

“I'm not getting near the spider,” Robertson said, earning himself a glare from everyone.

###

The two Roses made their way down a dimly lit corridor. The older Rose held a large pot, the other the lid.

“Are you alright?” the younger one asked. “It’s just you’ve been really quiet.”

“It’s just hard coming back to this time,” he admitted. “I miss it. I mean, I love my life with the Doctor and all, but you’re just starting out on this adventure and you’ve still got mum and Torchwood and all.”

“Sound a bit like the Doctor when he misses his past companions,” she said.

“I guess so. It adds up, you know. You love people and want to have those connections so that you can live your life full of passion and all. But then they’re gone and you’ve got all this time stretched out in front of you,” he explained.

“Your Doctor seems to have found some new excitement for life right now,” she commented.

“Yeah. I think the novelty of being a woman again has given her a bit of a spark,” he sighed. “I haven’t found the switch as easy.”

“Again?” 

“Last time that she was a woman was actually before the memory wipe on Gallifrey. So, it’s been a very long time,” he said.

It was then that they could see one of the spiders ahead of them. The older Rose hid in an alcove off the main hallway, while the younger went towards it to lure it back that way. With a bit of teamwork, they managed to capture it, but had to make a run for it afterward when a few dozen more started chasing them.

When they found Jade to take a look at their specimen, she told them that she needed to know if there were any out there larger than the one they had brought back. So, they were off to search the hotel again.

#####

“Now, hotel plans. Let's see,” the future Doctor said as she placed the blueprints on the table.

“That can't be accurate,” Robertson argued. “It doesn't even have my panic room marked on it.”

“Any issues with spiders before today, Donna?”

“Not that I know of. I’ve been checking on everything from time to time ever since the fixtures and carpets and such started going in,” she replied.

“How long did it take you to build this hotel?” the younger Doctor asked.

“Five years. We have fifteen of these hotels going up around the world now. Repurposing former industrial sites into luxury leisure venues,” Robertson told them

“Repurposing? What was the site before?” the younger Doctor questioned.

“I don't have... clarity on that,” Robertson admitted.

Donna rolled her eyes and said, “I do. Used to be a factory for engine parts. Long time ago, they even had the old tube tunnels running trains from the basement storage.”

This building connects to the disused tunnels running under the entire city?!” the older Doctor gasped.

Donna led the group down to the lowest level of the hotel, where they came across the last door marked ‘keep out’ and ‘danger of death.’ Robertson tried to argue that none of them were authorized to enter the area, but was roundly ignored. Inside, they found two missing staff (one of whom was the infamous Kevin) wrapped in webs as if they were being stored for food.

“Spiders don't eat people,” Jade argued.

“I said they're being stored. They haven't eaten them. They're outsized and confused. All their behavioural patterns have been disrupted. How did they get like this?” the older Doctor said.

“It doesn't make any sense. This is not what spiders do,” Jade insisted.

The younger Doctor went looking around for anything else of interest and definitely found something.

“Doctor?” he called.

“You don't need to go any deeper!” Robertson shouted.

“What have you got?” the older Doctor asked.

That was when they caught a glimpse of the underground storage area filled with garbage. They could see in the distance where it connected to the disused tunnels.

“What have you done?” he gasped.

“It's landfill,” Jade said.

“Is that what the smell is? It goes on for miles. We’re right next to the Thames you pinhead!” Donna wailed.

“I have a lot of companies, okay? JLR does corporate waste disposal. They're very efficient, very highly rated internationally,” Robertson told them.

“You fill up disused industrial spaces with landfill waste and build a luxury hotel on top?” the older Doctor asked.

“Smart business planning. Perfect vertical integration,” he argued.

“Not quite perfect, I'm afraid. Not quite efficient. A blocked-in site pumping out methane and sulphides and trichloroethylene, never mind the specialist material that haven't been properly preserved. A soup of toxic waste, incredibly badly managed. I mean, there's no outlet for it. It's just building and marinading and becoming more and more toxic. It's a botched job,” she countered.

“But it does have an outlet. Straight into the Thames! And down all the tunnels, into the water supply,” the younger Doctor snarled.

“I didn't know,” Robertson said.

“Oh yes, you did. That's what she was telling you when I saw you. Right before you fired me, you were talking to that woman, Frankie, who is now DEAD just over there! She was telling you this site was unsafe,” Donna raged.

“Okay, all right, you're right. That's why I came here. Apparently JLR was a little overzealous in cutting corners and worried about keeping the bottom line instead of doing the right thing. But I just sign the contracts, okay? I expect other people to do their jobs. This is not on me,” he insisted.

“Don't you even care?” the younger Doctor asked.

“Look, I'm going to pay you all off. You'll never have to work again,” Robertson said dismissively.

“Do you think I need money?” the younger Doctor questioned. “I’m married to the daughter of one of the richest men in the UK. Do you think we work for Torchwood because we couldn’t pay the rent? We could spend all our time doing nothing but strutting around at fancy parties. We work at Torchwood to make the world a better place because it’s important to us.”

“Look, I've never even been down here. It doesn't even add up,” Robertson insisted.

“It does for me. JLR Disposal. JLR takes the waste from our lab. Our aborted experiments and our spider carcasses,” Jade interjected.

“And they're all in there. Your spider carcasses in his toxic waste,” the older Doctor said.

“Not my fault. I didn't know anything about spider carcasses.”

“Course you didn't. You don't know anything. You just avoid taking any responsibility. I'm running through our work, stuff we shut down. Spiders bio-engineered for stronger cobwebs, prolonged life,” Jade told them.

“Because spiders can keep growing as long as they live,” the older Doctor added.

“What if our waste included something that we thought was dead, but was still just alive?” Jade suggested.

“And with enough food in all that waste to survive, and enough toxicity to mutate and to keep on growing,” the older Doctor continued.

Just as the Doctors, Donna, Jade, and Robertson made it back to the kitchen, they saw the two Roses enter from the other side. The couples immediately ran to each other, checking to make sure they were alright.

“We've found out what's going on,” Donna announced proudly.

“There’s a massive spider in the ballroom!” the older Rose told them.

“How massive?” his Doctor asked.

“The size of a large van,” the other Rose replied.

“Wow, that is massive,” the older Doctor agreed.

“It must be the mother and the rest are the babies. Some stayed here, some went out into the city, their pheromones disrupting the spider eco-system, causing other spiders to behave abnormally,” Jade reasoned.

“Of course. Your colleague, Anna. What if she had the same pheromones on her, accidentally calling out to a spider that had gone out hunting from this hotel? Every one of them, using the tunnels that run beneath the whole city to spread across the whole of London. All these spiders answering the same call, because in the end, every living thing has the same instinct. To come back home,” the younger Doctor said.

“That's very touching. But there's a plague in my hotel and it needs to be fixed,” Robertson told them.

“Show us your panic room,” the older Doctor said.


	7. Web of Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is currently the last chapter that I have written. So it might be a little while before I have more for you. I am definitely planning on a lot more for sure, I'm just super busy with work right now because everyone has been without a hairstylist for almost 4 months.

Robertson used a thumb print and retinal scanner to access his panic room, apparently thinking that his security system was quite impressive. But considering the stuff Torchwood had access to, let alone time travelling with the Doctor, most of them were decidedly not impressed.

“It looks like a bank vault,” Donna commented.

“My lockdown palace. I have one in every hotel, just in case it's needed. Not finished yet, but still,” he preened.

“What's in the boxes?” Donna asked.

“Food, water, entertainment system, a book. I could survive in here for six months if I needed to. And I've got a huge stash of weapons, enough for all of us. Enough for two guns apiece,” Robertson told them.

“Don’t you dare,” the younger Rose growled.

“You are not shooting those creatures,” her husband added.

“They're mutants,” he argued.

“Caused by you,” Jade countered.

“Your carcasses, lady, not mine.”

“Look, whatever happened, there are living, breathing organisms out there and we treat them with dignity. So here's what we're going to do,” the younger Doctor interjected to get back on task.

“Shoot them!” Robertson shouted, earning a glare from everyone in the room.

“We're not going to shoot them!” both Doctors and both Roses all roared in unison, making it quite clear just how alike and connected they all were.

“What's wrong with you people? Why don't you do what normal people do? Get a gun, shoot things, like a civilised person,” Robertson said.

“Because I've got a much better idea. Spiders are roaming this hotel searching for food. We're going to lure them in here with the promise of food, then deal with the spider mother in the ballroom. Oh, that sounds like the best novel Edith Wharton never wrote,” the older Doctor told them.

“Once they're in here, what happens?” Donna asked.

“We shut them in and isolate them,” Jade said.

“You're going to let spiders use my panic room?”

“Would you like to join them in here?” the older Rose suggested.

“They deserve a humane, natural death,” Jade told him.

“Shooting's quicker,” he grumbled.

“Also messier and more dangerous. This is the safest course of action and once we’re sure that they’ve died out in here, we can easily have a Torchwood team come in to incinerate the bodies,” the younger Rose said.

“So how are you going to lure them?” Donna asked.

“Spiders gravitate to their food through vibration. Any ideas?” the older Doctor questioned.

“Oh yeah,” Donna said with a smirk.

In no time the entertainment system from the panic room was pounding dubstep through the building, and likely into a few of the surrounding ones as well. Spiders were crawling toward the sound from all over the hotel as well as up through the tunnels surrounding it. 

“You listen to dubstep?” the younger Doctor asked Donna.

“What of it?” she said defensively.

“It just didn’t strike me as your type of music,” he said, tugging on his ear.

“Not likely something you’re going to learn about someone in a couple of hours while running from mutated spiders, is it?” she countered.

“I suppose not,” he said, thinking about another time when he and a different Donna were dealing with giant spiders.

When there didn’t appear to be any more heading into the panic room, they sealed the door and went to prepare to deal with the largest one in the ballroom. They collected essential oils from the hotel’s spa that were repellent to spiders in the hopes of luring it somewhere they could contain it, but discovered it was already dying, having grown too large to be able to breathe properly. Robertson was about to shoot it anyway, but Rose saw the gun in his hand and quickly disarmed him. A Torchwood team was called in to humanely euthanize the large spider and secure the hotel for a proper clean up.

“I talked to dad,” the younger Rose told them. “He said JLR will be charged for all the code violations at this site and they’ll be investigating all his other hotels under construction.”

The younger Doctor looked over to where Donna appeared to be waiting for a taxi with tears in her eyes. He immediately went to talk to her.

“So, what’s next for you, Donna?” he asked

“I dunno. My family were so proud when I got this management job. How the hell am I going to tell them that I was sacked before it even opened?” she said despondently.

“Well, I might be able to pull a few strings for you. Ever consider a job at Torchwood?” he suggested.

“What really? Why would you do that for me? You don’t even know me,” she questioned.

“Let’s just say, I have a good feeling about you, Donna Noble.”

###

“I just want to see her!” the older Rose shouted.

“Arkytior, you know that isn’t a good idea,” his Doctor insisted.

The younger Doctor looked at them curiously, wondering why they’d chosen the Gallifreyan word for Rose as a new name after all they’d learned about the planet recently. He supposed that there were a lot of pleasant memories about those flowers and his loomed granddaughter that had the same name and travelled with him so long ago. He could separate the name from the planet and appreciate it despite all that.

“You mean mum?” the younger Rose asked.

“Yeah.”

“We never told your mother about either of us being able to regenerate before she died. And you know that they won’t remember this, so if your mum said anything to them it might have unknowable repercussions,” the older Doctor told him.

“I know,” he sighed, a tear falling down his cheek. His wife immediately wrapped her arms around him.

“Look, I should bring dad’s car back home anyway before we head back to the TARDIS, maybe we could figure out a way for you to see her without talking to her. Better than nothing, yeah?” the younger Rose suggested.

Standing outside of the Tyler mansion, Rose was talking to her mum and dad. The Doctor had given Pete Donna’s contact information for a job with his glowing recommendation and they’d brought her father’s car back, informing him of where the Torchwood 4x4 was parked from before they were taken off the planet.

“How did the two of you get back here without it?” Jackie questioned.

“Oh, you know. Hitched a lift with the aliens we had contact with. They just needed a bit of help repairing their ship and dropped us off back here after,” the Doctor rambled.

Jackie was watching the nearby couple curiously. The woman who had come with Rose earlier had behaved suspiciously Doctor-like when she met her. The man with her seemed to be crying and both glancing in their direction and avoiding making eye contact with her. The Doctor standing near her was still babbling about something or other, but Jackie made her decision and walked toward the others.

“Wait! Mum!” the younger Rose shouted.

Jackie touched the young, ginger man’s shoulder and he turned to look at her with a shocked expression on his face.

“You are, aren’t you? You’re Rose,” Jackie said.

“But you aren’t supposed to-” the older Doctor started.

“Oh you can shut up! I guessed who you were right off,” Jackie snapped. “Now, do you want to explain to me how it is that you can change your face again and how Rose is doing it now too?”

“The aliens we met today. They were the Doctor’s people,” the younger Rose explained. “I know, we thought all his people were dead and it’s a really long explanation. But the important thing is that the Doctor can feel like himself again and I can stay with him for the rest of his life, mum.”

“We never told her that. And the two of you won’t even remember most of today,” the older Doctor protested.

“You think I can’t keep from mentioning any of this to the two of you? I’ve managed to keep from telling anyone here that I’m from another universe, no matter how screwed up everything is around here,” Jackie argued.

Arkytior suddenly threw himself into his mother’s arms, crying on her shoulder. Jackie was shocked for a moment at the sudden action, but wrapped her arms around him quickly and rubbed his back.

“You need this. And if I know about it, then you can come back and see me whenever you need,” Jackie assured him.

“Thank you, Jackie,” the older Doctor said.

After a tearful goodbye, they left for the TARDIS and set the coordinates once again for Karn and the younger couple’s new TARDIS.

“So how does this forgetting thing work anyway?” the younger Rose asked.

“You don’t have to do anything. You’ll know that you met us because the plan was for us to bring you here. I made a list of the components you need to collect along the way while you set all this up and the date to get it started. You’ll be aware that there was some missing time, but otherwise, it’s all taken care off. Just go on being the Doctor and Rose, travelling in time and space,” the older Doctor explained.

“Thank you,” Rose said.

“Yes, thank you,” her husband added.

“And thank you, for the chance to see mum again. As much as I need to now,” Arkytior said, wrapping an arm around his wife’s shoulders.

The younger couple walked out of their TARDIS to face their own. They blinked confusedly for a moment as the sound of the other TARDIS leaving echoed behind them. Before them stood a very familiar looking blue police box.

“It’s finished?” Rose asked. “We don’t have to stay and set it up for months?”

“Apparently not,” he replied and noticed the list in his hand. “We can set it up as we go according to this.”

“Why don’t I remember meeting us?” Rose asked.

“Oh, it’s all a bit complicated and wibbley-wobbley,” he said and pulled the pair of keys that were taped to the list free for each of them, unlocking the doors and leading his wife inside.

The console room looked similar to the one they were familiar with in that it was filled with large, coral struts surrounding the central console, but the console itself also looked more organic and grown. The floor wasn’t covered in a metal grate, but a stone like surface. The controls were more like crystal knobs and buttons than a mish-mash of found components. And there were two benches instead of one, with a base grown out of the coral and several cushions placed on top of them for comfort.

“She’s beautiful!” Rose exclaimed, feeling a warm welcome back from the ship. Rose gasped, “I can hear her!”

The Doctor hummed happily and told her, “We’re bonded to her. Both of us are. Must have done it while we were getting her set up to grow.”

“And it works even if it’s out of order time wise?” she questioned.

“Yup! Just means that she knows us. Now, my love, where would you like to visit first?” 

“Mmmm, I have a few ideas,” she replied, wrapping her arms around his neck. “But I think the first one has to be exploring this lovely new ship.”


	8. Exploring

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll just get this posted while I work on the next part of the story. I've got an interesting idea coming next and I hope you like it. In the meantime, here's some smuts (finally).

Rose and the Doctor dashed down the hallway leading from the console room into the rest of their new TARDIS hand in hand. The first rooms they came across were the kitchen and medbay, as they would be needed most often and most quickly in an emergency. Next came the library and across the hall was the swimming pool. They were a little concerned about the proximity of the pool to the books, should there be any excessive turbulence, but figured the ship knew best in that regard and the rooms could always be moved around later. 

A bit further down the hall was the power source or equivalent of an engine room. The Time Lords had harnessed the power of a collapsing supernova in the center of Gallifrey, known as the Eye of Harmony. All of their time capsules had a connection to it, but there was no such thing in this universe. The Doctor was excited to discover that their TARDIS was connected to a series of black holes and pulsars such that they would almost always be close enough to one of them no matter where or when they travelled. The ship also had a backup system that could connect itself to the closest power source available in an emergency.

The next room contained an Architectural Reconfiguration System that would produce any parts they would need to fix the ship in the future. Rose was worried that they would have trouble setting all this up for themselves when they worked on building the ship they’d bring themselves to now, but the Doctor assured her that they’d obviously figured out a way or it wouldn’t be there now. In any case, they were happy to have it or they would have been forever looking for parts in a universe that never had any other TARDISes.

The hallway seemed to go on a bit further, but when they reached their bedroom, the couple decided to take a break from exploring the ship.

“It’s beautiful,” Rose gasped as they entered the room.

The walls appeared to be a dark stained wood panelling, the floor was covered in a lush, dark red carpet, there were bookshelves, a writing desk, two wardrobes, a door leading to what was likely a very luxurious en suite, but the main feature was the huge, four poster bed. There were mountains of pillows and a thick, golden duvet.

“It is,” he agreed. “My, umm. My room on the other TARDIS looked very much like this before the war.”

Rose took his hand, sensing a bit of melancholy in his mood.

“Are you sure you want to keep it like this? I mean, I know we set this all up for ourselves and stuff, but if this isn’t what you want, Doctor, we can change it,” she told him.

“It’s fine, Rose. Exactly what I like, I was just reminded of my life before you. So, as long as you like it, we’ll keep it,” he replied.

For a few moments, they just looked into each other’s eyes and delved deeper into their new telepathic connection. As far as they could remember, it had only been a couple of hours since they’d formed this new connection.

“So, what’s sex like with telepathy involved? We’ve never tried anything like that before,” Rose wondered.

“I have no idea,” he admitted.

“What? How can you not know? Even with all those new memories?”

“The kind of bond that we have now is only ever shared with a soul mate. All we were ever told was that, until you’ve experienced it, nothing would ever compare,” he explained, caressing the side of her face. “I’ve told you that I’ve had sex before. I’ve even tried incorporating telepathy a little bit on the rare occasion that it was with another telepathic species, but for the most part it was distracting more than anything. My understanding of this kind of connection, is that we won’t just communicate the way I always have before, but we’ll feel each other’s emotions.”

“Sounds like we’ll need to do some experimenting then,” Rose said, tugging on his tie to loosen it.

“Mmmm. A lot of experimenting. Very thorough use of the scientific method requires repeated testing for a proper analysis of the data,” he agreed, his voice deepening as he pulled her hips towards his own.

Both of them closed their eyes and groaned as they felt the other’s arousal echoing in their mind, amplifying exponentially as their thoughts entwined. The Doctor quickly began to work at removing Rose’s trousers while she pulled off his tie and worked on the buttons of his shirt. Eventually, they gave up on the coordination of trying to take off each other’s clothes and just ripped off their own as quickly as possible.

Rose crawled onto the center of the bed and tossed the covers down out of their way. She turned to brace herself against the huge pile of pillows just in time to watch the Doctor fighting to remove his left shoe, his trousers unfastened, but still in place. She giggled at the familiar sight, her husband often having this problem when they were in a hurry. The look he gave her, coupled with the telepathic rebuke of her teasing, awakened a new level of arousal in her that made her writhe on the bed as she waited for him to join her.

Finally, the Doctor crawled up the bed and over her to kiss her deeply. He wrapped one arm around her to pull her into a more horizontal position and his other hand went straight to her breast, massaging it with just the right amount of pressure. There was no need to build up any further as they were both aware of just how ready they were. He rolled over her and she wrapped her legs around his hips. The Doctor gazed into her eyes as he positioned himself at her entrance and gently slid inside. 

Their coupling was slow and deep as they basked in the new feeling of their bond. There was nothing like it, each of them knowing instinctively what the other wanted. A squeeze, a faster pace, a change in angles, there were no words needed as the room filled with only the sounds of their moans and gasps. He leaned down to take her nipple into his mouth when he could sense that she was getting close and just needed a little more stimulation. In only a minute or two more, they both tumbled over the precipice into ecstasy and lay boneless next to each other on the bed.

“Oh my god,” Rose sighed, prompting a happy hum from her husband. “Wish we had done that bonding thing ages ago.”

“That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced, in the thousands of years of my lives,” he told her.

Rose snuggled next to him as they pulled the covers over their naked bodies for a quick nap.

Rose felt a slight fluttering in her mind as she drifted up from sleep. It intensified slightly for a bit, then came a light tickling on her cheek. She tried to swat it away and heard the Doctor giggle. He caught her easily as she threw herself at him in retaliation and realized that he felt her intention before she had even moved. They both laughed and tickled each other for a few minutes before settling on the bed.

“Can I ask you something that might be a bit sensitive?” Rose questioned after a moment.

“Of course you can.”

“Now that you… know more? Do you know how I got pregnant and what happened?” she asked.

He threaded their fingers together and thought about it for a while before answering. “The Time Lords had to force everyone to use the looms and told them all that they couldn’t have offspring any other way. If they’d tried, the genetic modifications they’d stolen from me wouldn’t have held over. So that explains what I thought, but not what actually happened,” he explained. “I told you when we first started travelling that I’d ‘danced’ before and I was able to keep the assumption that I was infertile since nothing ever came of any of it. Oltieh can’t have a lot of children. When you’re nearly immortal, it’s a terrible idea to have too many. We can only procreate with our soul mate. It’s the only way it works. We weren’t bonded at the time, so it’s surprising that it even happened then, but we may be doomed to expect a fair number of miscarriages, I’m afraid.”

Rose closed her eyes and considered how difficult that would be for them over centuries. She didn’t want something like that to stop being something that was sad and painful, but she also didn’t want to have to feel that pain so acutely very often. But if they didn’t keep trying, they might never have any children at all.

“I’m sorry, love,” he whispered, feeling her melancholy over the news.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry about. It does make sense. Oltieh would overrun all the universes if they just kept having lots of babies over millennia and nobody died. You said nearly immortal. With unlimited regenerations, how could we die?” she wondered.

“If the process of regenerating is interrupted with another deadly attack before the change happens, or if you found yourself in an inescapable situation, like say a pit of lava or something. There’s also the bond. The energy of your life force is now tied with mine, that’s how you gain the power of regenerating. If either of us dies, the other won’t be far behind, like love birds,” he said.

“Good things to know,” she replied.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t explain all of this before.”

“You didn’t know when we first fell in love. And even knowing all of that, I wouldn’t have said no to the bonding and stuff, Doctor. You’re stuck with me,” Rose said, finally giving him a small smile.

“We’ll give each and every one of them a little shrine like you did with our first. We can have a garden room in the TARDIS just for that. I understand not wanting it to feel like nothing when it happens. Life is so precious, and a life we make together will be all the more precious.”

“Thank you, Doctor. But enough of that. Let’s have some breakfast and then find ourselves an adventure,” Rose said, throwing her legs over the side of the bed and heading towards the shower.

He considered her for a moment, trying to get a feel for her emotional state and realized that she meant it. She accepted what they had discussed and wanted to move on. She wasn’t upset with him and had pushed her sadness aside for now. The Doctor followed her into the shower and they enjoyed the never ending hot water that they had missed since leaving the other TARDIS.


	9. Parallels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like where I'm going with this... it was fun so there might be more of these.

They’d been travelling this new universe for about a week, finding out what planets were different from the other and such before they decided to hit the randomizer that their future selves were so thoughtful to include while setting up their TARDIS to begin with. 

As they exited the ship, Rose said, “Looks like Earth, sort of Roman I’d guess?”

“It would appear so,” her husband replied.

“Should we change our clothes then? Last time we were in Rome we sported those sexy togas,” she suggested.

“Nah, we’ll be fine. First, we don’t have the wardrobe full of period clothing to find something yet, second, there’s so many foreign traders that most of them don’t look twice at what anyone is wearing,” he assured her.

They strolled down the dusty street hand in hand and Rose looked at some of the fabrics and such that were for sale, thinking that she might start filling up their wardrobe for the future.

“This area looks familiar,” the Doctor commented.

“Well, we were in Rome before, was this near where you were looking for me or something?” 

“No, no, no, no…. It’s not Rome. I was here with Donna,” he told her.

“You never told me you went to ancient Rome with Donna. You said you went to - oh no,” Rose realized, both of their eyes widening. “We should get out of here, shouldn’t we?”

“Well, normally, knowing that we’re approaching a fixed point, I would say absolutely, yes we should be leaving immediately. But, if the same thing is happening here as what was happening in the other universe, then we need to stop it. And, luckily, I know exactly how to do that, because I’ve already done it before!” he said happily.

While he’d been rambling, they walked back to where they had parked the TARDIS and, sure enough, it was gone. The Doctor approached the nearest vendor and asked where the big, blue box had gone.

“Sold it, didn't I?” he responded.

“But it didn’t belong to you!” Rose protested.

“It was on my patch, weren't it? I got fifteen sesterces for it. Lovely jubbly,” he said happily.

“Who'd you sell it to?” the Doctor asked, expecting this.

“Old Caecilius. Look, if you want to argue, why don't you take it out with him? He's on Foss Street. Big villa. Can't miss it.”

“Thanks,” the Doctor said, trying to lead Rose away.

“Hang on, what’d he want with a big, wooden box?” Rose asked the vendor.

“Come on,” the Doctor said. “You’ll like Caecilius, he’s nice! Thought the TARDIS was some kind of art piece.”

There were a few tremors on the way there and Rose watched as the Doctor caught a falling bust on his way inside the villa.

“Whoa! There you go,” the Doctor exclaimed as he handed the statue to the older man wearing robes of the nobility.

“Thank you, kind sir. I'm afraid business is closed for the day. I'm expecting a visitor,” Caecilius said.

“But that's me, I'm a visitor. Hello. I’m the Doctor and this is my lovely wife, Rose.”

“I'm sorry, but I'm not open for trade,” he insisted, trying to usher the couple back outside.

“And that trade would be?” the Doctor asked, smiling knowingly and reaching into his pocket.

“Marble. Lopus Caecilius. Mining, polishing and design thereof.”

“That's good, because I'm the marble inspector,” he said, flashing the psychic paper.

“By the gods of commerce, an inspection!” the woman nearby exclaimed and ushered two teenagers out of the room entirely. The pair looked at the Doctor and Rose with suspicion, but obeyed the instructions to leave.

“And this is my good wife, Metella,” Caecilius told them. “I must confess, we're not prepared for a-”

“Nothing to worry about. I'm sure you've nothing to hide. Although, frankly, that object looks rather like wood to me,” the Doctor said.

“I told you to get rid of it,” Metella scolded her husband.

“I only bought it today,” Caecilius said.

“Yeah, well, we’ll definitely need to do a very thorough inspection of it,” Rose interjected.

“Oh! Rose, I almost forgot, we haven’t greeted the household gods,” the Doctor said, pulling her towards the small shrine.

Caecilius and his wife continued to argue quietly while the Doctor and Rose had their own telepathic discussion.

_ “This is all going exactly the way it did before, so as long as we do the same as Donna and I did last time, we should be fine,” he said. _

_ “Are you sure though? What if -” _

_ “Trust me, love. I know exactly what’s going on. Now, Lucius will be here in a minute and he’s working with the Pyroviles. They’re seeding themselves into the soothsayers and turning them into beings of stone. They’ve got a conversion matrix built under Vesuvius to turn the humans into Pyroviles and they can take over the planet. We just need to get in there and destroy it,” he explained. _

_ “Alright, just let me know what you need me to do, Doctor.” _

“Announcing Lucius Petrus Dextrus, Chief Augur of the City Government,” one of the servants announced.

Rose and the Doctor politely acknowledged the man who entered the house.

“Lucius. My pleasure, as always,” Caecilius said. “A rare and great honour, sir, for you to come to my house.”

“The birds are flying north, and the wind is in the west,” Lucius told them.

“Quite. Absolutely. That's good, is it?” Caecilius agreed.

“Only the grain of wheat knows where it will grow.”

“Pardon me, sir. I have guests. This is the Doctor and his wife, Rose,” Caecilius said.

“A name is but a cloud upon a summer wind,” Lucius replied.

“But the wind is felt most keenly in the dark,” the Doctor countered, and Rose guessed that he had gone through this same battle of wits with the parallel Lucius.

“Ah. But what is the dark, other than an omen of the sun?”

“I concede that every sun must set,” the Doctor continued, prompting a laugh of triumph from Lucius. “And yet, the son of the father must also rise.”

“Damn. Very clever, sir. Evidently, a man of learning,” he said.

“That he is,” Rose told them and tugged her husband back to let the gentlemen get on with their visit. “We’ll stay out of your way.”

“And I shall reveal to you the next piece in the series of stones,” Caecilius announced, unveiling a large stone block with what appeared to be a circuit pattern etched into the surface. “It pleases you, sir?”

“As the rain pleases the soil,” Lucius agreed.

“Oh, that’s very interesting. Where’d that pattern come from, then?” Rose questioned. She knew the Doctor had seen all this before, but asking questions was what they always did and she was aware that they needed to keep things as close to normal as they could or it might not go as the Doctor had expected.

“A special commission from my Lord Lucius,” Caecilius told them.

“You designed this?” Rose asked.

“I trust the work of those I hire in my position as City Augur,” Lucius replied.

_ “The Augur is paid to tell the future and take care of things based on those visions,” the Doctor explained telepathically. _

“Of course,” Rose said. “And this is for some kind of artwork then?”

“A shrine to honour the gods in the city square,” Caecilius explained, then proceeded to discuss the details of their transaction with Lucius privately.

Rose noticed that Metella was talking with the two children she’d seen earlier. They all seemed a bit worried about something and Rose decided that she should probably try to find out what it was.

“What’s next, Doctor?” she asked.

“There was a bit of an argument with Donna around this point, but the important bit is that tonight, I’m going to get a good look at all the circuits over at Lucius’ house and confront him about his bit in all this. He’ll sort of sound the alarm on me interfering and then we can get ourselves over to Vesuvius to destroy the converter,” he explained.

“Right, and we need them to know that we’re going to interfere why?” she wondered.

“Well, because that’s how it went before?” he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Tell you what, there’s something going on with those kids, and I’d like to have a chat with them. So you go do your thing with Lucius, and I’ll stay here,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Perfect! Yes, Donna stayed here too while I did that. It’ll be just the same as before that way,” he told her confidently.


	10. Not So Parallel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, not exactly how the Doctor thought this would go.

The Doctor already knew the way to Lucius Petrus Dextrus’ house this time, so he didn’t bother with trying to convince Quintus to show him the way. It had only made the boy’s mother upset after all. He climbed up through the window and went to have a look at the stone circuits that he knew would be inside. Really, the whole adventure was going exactly the way it had with Donna. Well, almost exactly. Nearly, sort of. If Donna had been here arguing it would have been exactly the same. It was only because Rose was so good at blending in and trusted him so much that she wasn’t causing as much of a stir as his ginger companion had.

“Oh,” he gasped as he entered a room where he expected to see a relatively small pile of stone circuits that would later be moved to Vesuvius to construct the converter. What he found were dozens of the circuit stones, scattered haphazardly around the room. “That’s different. What are you building?”

“The future, Doctor. We are building the future, as dictated by the gods,” Lucius replied as he entered the room.

“Right. Knew you were going to say that, but I’ve seen one of these before, why’s yours so much bigger?” the Doctor wondered. He’d had the other one assembled in a few minutes, this would probably take an hour at least.

“Our shrine to the gods must be truly impressive to garner their favour,” he said.

“Ok, sure I’ll give you that. Umm, tell you what, I was just doing some marble inspecting and such. I’ll be on my way then,” he rambled as he suddenly felt Rose’s anxiety at something and realized that this wasn’t going exactly as he was expecting.

“Sneaking into my home in the dark of night? Surely you are here to sabotage the work of our best artisan in the worship of the gods,” Lucius argued, calling his guards forward to apprehend the Doctor.

“Not at all. I have great admiration for this work and wish you all the best with this. Let’s shake on it,” he suggested, remembering that part of what gave it all away was the fact that the man’s arm was completely stone.

When Lucius tossed his cape over his shoulder to tentatively shake hands with the Doctor, he realized just how badly he had evaluated the situation. This man wasn’t being turned to stone and thinking back on everything he had actually said in this universe, Lucius had never claimed to have come up with the circuit designs himself. Rose’s worry was getting worse and he needed to figure out what was really going on quickly. It took a bit of fancy footwork, but the Doctor managed to escape being arrested. He was being chased by Lucius’ guards rather than a large stone being travelling through the hypocausts, but he would save Rose from whatever trouble she was in, then figure out what he’d missed.

_ “Where are you, love?” he asked her telepathically. _

_ “Don’t you know?” she responded petulantly. _

_ “Alright, I might have been a bit overconfident that things would go exactly the same way, but we don’t have a whole lot of time to work with now,” he admitted. _

_ “Still at Caecilius’ house, they’ve got me tied up in Evelina’s room.” _

The Doctor approached the house cautiously this time. He could have gone through the window of Evelina’s room, but it didn’t make as grand an entrance and he got the sense that he might need to assert some authority to get a handle on this situation.

“All that remains is to capture the other and we can continue with our plans. The humans still suspect nothing about the device,” Metella said.

“I never should have taken their ship to begin with. Maybe they would have left without suspicion,” Caecilius grumbled as he paced around the room.

“Stop worrying, father. This one was easy enough to capture, I’m sure the Doctor won’t be a problem,” Quintus told him.

“A problem you say?” the Doctor said as he strolled casually into the room and headed in the general direction of his wife. “Well, I suppose I have yet to earn that reputation in this part of the multiverse, but what do you think, love? Might the Doctor be a problem to beings that seem to have some kind of nefarious plan for the Earth?”

“Probably,” she replied with a smirk.

“Probably. A probable problem. Love some good alliteration. But now, to you. You’re building something and you’ve got the humans helping you with it. Who are you and what do you want?” he demanded.

“Why should we tell you?” Evelina asked.

“Because if it’s a simple matter of needing a lift home, then I can help you. But if you intend any harm to these people, I will stop you,” the Doctor warned.

“We don’t need your help. Soon our entire civilization will join us to take over all of the humans and you cannot stop us,” Metella told them confidently.

“Really? You haven’t even got your device constructed yet and you think you can’t be stopped?” Rose scoffed as the Doctor used his sonic to discreetly loosen the ropes around her wrists and ankles.

“The parts have been completed and the human authorities will prevent you from interfering. They believe we are working for their benefit,” Caecilius countered.

_ “Window,” the Doctor told Rose silently. _

“They’ll try to prevent us from interfering for sure, but people have been trying to do that for centuries,” the Doctor said.

The guards that had been chasing him from Lucius’ house burst into the room and the Doctor used the momentary distraction to grab his wife’s hand and boosted her out the window before jumping up to follow her. They dashed through the dark streets and found an alcove where they could hide while they formed a new plan.

“Not Pyroviles using Vesuvius then?” Rose whispered.

“Hush you,” he replied to her teasing. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Doctor. So, what’s the new plan?” she asked.

“We need to reveal them to the humans so that their device is destroyed before they can use it. If we just break it, they’ll rebuild it.”

“And how are we going to do that?” she wondered.

The Doctor thought for a moment about the various ways they could go about it in this society and came to only one conclusion.    
  


“How would you feel about reprising your role as Fortuna?”

It wasn’t terribly difficult to find appropriate robes for their roles and Rose agreed that this plan would be the least likely to disrupt the beliefs of the humans at this point in history. The Doctor admitted to not knowing the history of Pompeii in this universe and he had been purposely dampening his time senses since realizing where they were. Now that he examined the timelines more, he realized that events surrounding Pompeii were not a pivotal fixed point. Things could certainly go wrong and the volcano was going to erupt soon, but the historical catastrophe and the future discovery of the buried city were not essential and established events on this Earth.

“Alright, Doctor. I’m Fortuna, the goddess of fortune and basically karma. Who are you supposed to be again?” Rose asked as she finished adjusting her clothing.

“Bonus Eventus. Commonly depicted as Fortuna’s counterpart, the literal translation would be the god of good outcomes,” he explained. “We will make our displeasure known so that the people of Pompeii will stop making this shrine to protect their good favour with the gods and drive out these evil influencers.”

“What’s to keep them from just trying again in another city?” Rose wondered.

“I used some of the things in my pockets to make a sort of force field type cage thing. We will offer, very politely, to relocate them back home or on some uninhabited planet where they won’t bother anyone.”

As the sun rose and the people of Pompeii started to come outside, the Doctor and Rose had positioned themselves on the platform where the “shrine” was going to be built. Before long, they were confronted by Caecilius and his family, along with Lucius and his guards.

“If you believe that changing your clothes would keep us from recognizing you, Doctor, you are mistaken,” Lucius announced. “Seize them!”

“We are merely revealing ourselves now that we have discovered who has been involved in these misdeeds,” the Doctor told them.

“I am Fortuna and you have greatly displeased me,” Rose said loudly to the crowd that had formed.

“Ha! As if we would believe such nonsense,” Caecilius shouted, but the people around them looked wary.

Vesuvius began to rumble again at just that moment as Rose glared at him angrily.

“It is your design that is the problem. The stones that he has created for this shrine do not celebrate the lands that we make fruitful, they are etched with evil symbols and must be destroyed or you will see the wrath of the gods,” Rose told them.

“How do we know that you are in fact, Fortuna?” Lucius questioned cautiously.

“I appear before you with Bonus Eventus to warn you not to persist in this. How dare you question me!” Rose shouted as the tremors started again and the Doctor dropped a small smoke bomb on the ground behind her. He had gathered the chemicals needed earlier in case they wanted to use the activities of Vesuvius to their advantage. “The gods have been warning you for weeks and you have not listened. Destroy the stones now or face the consequences!”

“They are lying! These are not gods!” Caecilius argued.

“The gods have been angry. The mountains shake,” a man in the crowd reasoned.

“She calls forth smoke from the mountain too! This must be Fortuna. Forgive us please, we didn’t know,” a woman cried, throwing herself on the ground at their feet.

Lucius ran to his house nearby and started throwing the stones out the window. Some of his guards went to help and carried several of them outside to let the other citizens help smash them on the ground. Caecilius and his family yelled in anger, their eyes changed to glow red, sparking panic in the surrounding humans.

“You’ve ruined everything!” Metella bellowed in a huge voice.

“They’re demons!” a child screamed.

At that point, the humans started throwing the broken marble pieces and other stones at them. It wasn’t what the Doctor and Rose had intended, but there wasn’t any way to stop them once it had started without endangering themselves. Once the alien device had been destroyed, they returned to the TARDIS and left Pompeii before finding out if Vesuvius did indeed bury the city or not.

“I suppose we should probably do a bit of research on the differences in history in this universe,” Rose suggested once they were in the vortex.

“We shouldn’t need to. That’s what our time sense is for. No matter what universe I travelled to, I would know how to avoid interfering in important events,” he told her.

“Do I have a time sense now? I didn’t really feel anything,” Rose wondered.

“Let’s work on that for a bit,” he said, taking her hand and leading her down the hallway towards the library.


End file.
